A Letter To You

Dear Mommy,

I haven’t said your name in years. I haven’t even called you mommy because you don’t deserve the title of a mother. I try not to think about you but it’s difficult when you are there in every waking moment and every sleeping moment. Your footsteps haunt my sleep to the point where I can’t sleep. You dragged down my self esteem so low that I can’t seem to build it back it up. I pretend to be fine. From everyone else’s point of view I might have a few symptoms of depression but other than that, I’m fine. You killed my mind and now it’s slowly killing me. Slowly and painfully. I understand now why people kill themselves. You’ve made me understand. That feeling of loneliness. That feeling of fear. The pain. First, I didn’t feel like leaving the house. Soon, I couldn’t leave my room. After that, I couldn’t leave my bed. I stopped talking to my friends because I can’t deal with their shit. I have my own shit and I feel like no one else sees that. I can’t blame all my problems on you. I think I had a bit of anxiety before I met you but you definitely made it worse. There are times when I burst out into cleaning sprees. I don’t think that I’m cleaning I just need to clean. My life depends on it. Fear courses through my veins. Faster, faster, clean faster. Clean it all. Everything everything. Then I stop. Midway through cleaning, a pile of clothes in my arm and books in my hand. I tell my therapist I don’t know why I do it and I assume she marks it down as just more OCD, but no. I know why I do it. It’s a reflex. I’ll hear footsteps and that will trigger my PTSD and suddenly I’m back in that house and if I don’t clean...I don’t like to think of consequences. I think it matters only that there is one. Instead of drilling lessons into my head you have drilled fear. I’m trying to live my life with new friends, a new family, a new school, a new me. Suddenly, I just can’t do it. I go insane! I drop half my friends, I hide from my family, since you’ve last saw me I’ve changed schools three times. I can’t figure out who I am and I am having difficulty separating me from my disorders. I have no motivation, no inspiration, and now my dreams are dust. Stardust, so far away I cannot reach it. You did this. I hate to admit it but I know you suffer too. From different problems but when you made me this way I fear that I will become you. It’s a cycle of abuse. Who will I hurt? Who will hurt me? I hide myself from the world afraid that they’ll judge me. I was born stubborn though. A little stubborn voice in my head is telling me “Don’t be an idiot!”. I look in the mirror at a hideous monster and its says “That is not you!”. My reflection changes. I look at a razor and begin to pick it up and it screams at me “Is this really what you want?!” I put down the razor. I hate you. I hate you with every fiber of my being, with every molecule of my body, with every part of my heart, I hate you. And I thought I should let you know.

Sincerely,

Your Broken Child